'Why doesn't it thunder in winter, Daddy?'
He explained this too, reflecting as he spoke that he was on his way to an assignation. Not a soul knew about it—or ever would know, probably. He was living two lives. One ofthem^ was open to view by— and known to—the people concerned. It was full of stereotyped truths and stereotyped untruths, it was identical with the life ofhis friends and acquaintances. The other life proceeded in secret. Through some strange and possibly arbitrary chain of coincidences everything vital, interesting and crucial to him, everything which called his sincerity and integrity into play, everything which made up the core of his life . .. all that took place in complete secrecy, whereas everything false about him, the fat;:ade behind which he hid to conceal the truth— his work at the bank, say, his arguments at the club, that 'inferior species' stuff, attending anniversary celebrations with his wife—all that was in the open. Hejudged others by himself, disbelieving the evidence of his eyes, and attributing to everyone a real, fascinating life lived Wlder the cloak of secrecy as in the darkness of the night. Each indivi- dual existence is based on mystery, which is perhaps why civilized man makes such a neurotic fuss about having his privacy respected.
After taking his daughter to school, Gurov made for the Slav Fair. He removed his coat downstairs, went up, tapped on the door. Anne was wearing his favourite grey dress, she was tired by the journey— and by the wait, after expecting him since the previous evening. She was pale, she looked at him without smiling, and no sooner was he in the room than she flung herself against his chest. Their kiss was as protracted and lingering as if they had not met for years.
'Well, how are things with you?' he asked. 'What's the news?'
'Wait, I'll tell you in a moment—I can't now.'
Unable to speak for crying, she turned away and pressed a handker- chief to her eyes.
'Let her cry, I'll nt down for a bit,' thought he, and sat in the arm- chair.
Then he rang and ordered tea. Then he drank it while she still stood with her back to hir,n, facing the window.
She wept as ontf distressed and woefully aware of the melancholy tum which their lives had taken. They met only in secret, they hid from other people like thieves. Their lives were in mins, were they not?
'Now, do stop it,' he said.
He could see that this was no fl.eeting affair—there was no telling when it would end. Anne was growing more and more attached to him. She adored him, and there was no question of telling her that all this must fmish one day. Besides, she would never believe him.
He went up to her, laid his hands on her shoulders, meaning to soothe her with a little banter—and then caught sight of himself in the nurror.
His hair was turning grey. He wondered why he had aged so much in the last few years and lost his looks. The shoulders on which his hands rested were warm and trembling. He pitied this life—still so warm and beautiful, but probably just about to fade and wither like his Why did she love him so? Women had never seen him as he really was. What they loved in him was not his real self but a figment of their o^ imaginations—someone whom they had dreamed of meet- ing all their lives. Then, when they realized their mistake, they had loved him all the same. Yet none of them had been happy with ltim. Time had passed, he haci met new ones, been intimate with them, parted from them. Not once had he been in love, though. He had known everything conceivable—except love, that is.
Only now that his head was grey had he well and truly fallen in love: for the first time in his life.
Anne and he loved each other very, very dearly, like man and wife or bosom friends. They felt themselves predestined for each other. That he should have a wife, and she a husband ... it seemed to make no sense. They were like two migratory birds, a male and a female, caught and put in separate cages. They had forgiven each other the shameful episodes of their past, they forgave each other for the present too, and they felt that their love had transformed them both.
Once, in moments of depression, he had tried to console himself with any argument which came into his head—but now he had no use ior arguments. His deepest sympathies were stirred, hc only wanted to be sincere and tender.
'Stop, darling,' he said. 'You've had your cry—that's enough. Now let's talk, let's think ofsomething.'
Then they consulted at length about avoiding the need for conceal- ment and deception, for living in different towns, for meeting only at rare intervals. How could they break these intolerable bonds? How, how, how?
He clutched his head and asked the question again and again.
Soon, it seemed, the solution would be foimd and a wonderful new life would begin. But both could see that they still had a long, long way to travel—and that the most complicated and difficult part was only just beginning.
THE DUEL
I
It was eight o'clock in the morning—the hour when officers, civil servants and visitors usually took a dip in the sea aftcr the hot, stuffy night, and then wcnt to the Pavilion for their coffcc or tea. Ivan Layevsky—a thin, fair-haired young man of about twenty-eight— arrived for his bathc wearing slippers and the pcaked cap of a treasury official. On thc bcach hc found niany acquaintanccs, among whom was his friend Samoylcnko, an army mcdical officer.
Samoylenko had a large head, close-cropped hair and no neck to speak of. He was ruddy and big-nosed, he had bectling black eye- brows and grey dundreary whiskers. Fat, paunchy, with the deep, raucous voice of a typical army man, he struck every new arrival unpleasantly as a blustering bully. But after two or three days one began to find his face extremely kind and agreeablc—handsome, even. Clumsy and rough though he was, he was also mild, infinitely easy- going, good-humoured and obliging. He was on Christian-name terms with everyone in town, lent them money, gave them medical consulta- tions, arranged their marriages, patchcd up their quarrels, and organized picnics at which he grilled kebabs and brewed a most tasty grey mullet stew. A cheery soul, he was always asking favours on someone's behalf. He was commonly regarded as a paragon, having only two weak points. Firstly, he was ashamed to be so kind, and tried to hide it with his stern look and pretence of rudeness. And, in the second place, he liked medical orderlies and soldiers to call him general, though he was only a colonel.
'Answer me this, Alexander,' Layevsky began when he and Samoy- lenko were both shoulder deep in water. 'You fall in love with a woman, let's say, and have an affair with her. You live with her for over two years, say, and then, as does happen, you fall out of love and start thinking of her as a stranger. What would you do?'
'No problem. "Clear out, old thing," you tell her, and that's that.'
'It's easily said. But say she has nowhere to go? She's alone in the world, she has no family, she's completely broke, she can't get ajob '
'All right then—let her have five hWldred roubles down, or twenty- five a month, and no argument. Very simple.'
'Granted you have five hundred roubles and the twenty-five a month—even so, I'm talking about a proud, educated woman. Could you really bring yourself to offer her money? And how would you set about it?'
Samoylenko made to reply, but a large wave broke over both and crashed on the beach, roaring back downwn the shingle. The friends came out of the water and started dressing.
'Ifyou don't love a woman, it'snot easy to live with her-obviously,' said Samoylenko, shaking sand out of his boot. 'But one must be reasonably humane, Ivan. If it was me, I'd pretend I still did love her, and I'd live with her till my dying day.'
Suddenly ashamed of his words, he pulled himself up.